An Aldi grocery store will join a Lowe’s home improvement center in the Trailwinds development on the north side of County Road 466A west of the Sandhill golf course.
Wildwood officials said Monday before a City Commission meeting that a site plan for the store will come before the city’s Project Review Committee soon and will be reviewed by the commission by early next year.
The closest Aldi’s stores to The Villages are on U.S. Hwy. 27/441 in Lady Lake and in Leesburg.
With nearly 10,000 stores in 18 countries, Aldi is a no-frills discount store that features many private label items. Shoppers are responsible for their own bags and boxes.
Aldi and its sister store, Trader Joe’s, were founded in Germany by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht. A 1960 disagreement between them over selling cigarettes split their business into the two separate store chains.
A site plan for the 105,259-square-foot Lowe’s home improvement center in Trailwinds was reviewed last week by the Wildwood Planning and Zoning Board. Construction of that store will take about eight months and it could open by the end of next year.
When completed, Trailwinds will include 296 homes, 462 assisted living beds, 572,750 square feet of retail space and 151,500 square feet of office space. The developer paid for a $1.8-million sewer line to the site from Wildwood’s sewage treatment plan west of U.S. 301.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, Wildwood commissioners approved a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries and treatment centers.
A constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 general election ballot would legalize marijuana use for people with certain debilitating conditions. The marijuana would be dispensed at the treatment centers.
Melanie Peavy, the city’s director of development services, said the moratorium will be in place until an ordinance can be approved to regulate where the centers can be located.
“We are taking a precautionary step,” she said.
City Attorney Ashley Hunt said, for example, that the treatment centers should not be located next to a school.
